by Lucy Tan
The gang itself began disappearing for months at a time, working its way deeper into black society—fighting other gangs, gambling, running up debts, and worse. So when Qiang finally disappeared for good, Wei was upset but not surprised. Deep down, he had always known they would have to let Qiang go. And as hard as he had worked to try to find his brother, he knew that the search was futile. If Qiang didn’t want to be found, he wouldn’t be. The only way for the Zhens to see him again was to wait for Qiang to change his mind and come back of his own accord.
After Wei and Lina had been living in the U.S. for ten years, there was a freak accident that took all four of their parents’ lives. Early one morning in America, they had received a call from China’s department of transportation services. The Zhens and Fangs had been traveling from Suzhou to vacation up north when their train had collided with a freight train traveling in the other direction; none of their parents had made it. There was no time to absorb the shock. Wei and Lina had packed up and taken the next flight out of Philadelphia, arriving just in time to help with the last of the memorial-service arrangements and greet the distraught family and friends. Wei had never told Lina, but he had tried to delay the service as much as possible for a reason. He was giving Qiang more time—time to hear the news, time to process it, time to arrange for his own travel. He knew without a doubt that his brother would be at the service. Black society was well connected. It was impossible that Qiang wouldn’t have heard of his parents’ accident. But when the day came, Qiang wasn’t there. That’s when the possibility occurred to Wei: What if his brother was dead?
In the shower, Wei rubbed his eyes with the heavy heels of his hands, trying to clear his thoughts. No good dwelling on the past now. It was time to make a new start with Qiang and try for a better relationship than what they’d had. Wei shut off the water and opened the shower door. He stopped. Had he shampooed? Had he soaped? He had definitely soaped—the bar was sudsy. The shampoo was always the tricky one. He leaned in close to the bottle, looking for water droplets on its surface. There were only a few flecks, which meant that he probably hadn’t. He rubbed his fingers into his scalp, held them up to his nose, and sniffed. Couldn’t tell. Felt a little greasy. To be safe, he turned the water back on to shampoo again. He could almost feel the nutrients being leached from his hair follicles. This, most likely, was the cause of his hair loss—shampooing twice a day due to distractedness. Even before this business with Qiang, he’d found himself becoming less alert. Work stress collected like sap along the walls of his mind; every problem seemed to stick in his consciousness.
By the time Wei emerged from the shower, he felt moderately awake. He dressed without turning on the closet light, a routine he was able to manage by requesting that Lina buy him dress shirts and pants that matched one another interchangeably. Thus, his wardrobe was filled with light-colored tops and dark-colored bottoms, creating a staid but straightforward personal style. Lina was still sleeping when he crossed the bedroom. While he’d been rising earlier with his mounting workload, she had been getting out of bed later, as though the hours of sleep he left behind had taken up residence in her.
The clubhouse was emptier than usual; there wasn’t even a line at the takeaway counter. As Wei walked toward it, the blue-tiled walls of the corridor seemed to move, converging in on him like the barrel of a wave.
“Good morning,” Wei said to the attendant.
“Good morning, Boss Zhen.” She checked her list. “It doesn’t look like I have anything here for you.”
“Shi ma? My wife must have forgotten to put in my order last night. Could you fill it for me now while I wait?”
“Sure. Two hard-boiled eggs, yogurt, and a croissant?”
“You got it.”
As she left to prepare his breakfast, Wei heard his name being called. He turned around to see David Ming, chief risk management officer for Deutsche Bank, walking toward him. David was dressed in short sleeves and khakis. This could mean one of two things: One, that David was going to skip work today, which was unlikely. Two, that today was not in fact a workday.
“Zhen Zhiwei! Don’t tell me you’re heading into the office!”
Damn. So it was a weekend. He panicked; this was the second time in two months he’d made a mistake like this. He had to get more sleep.
“I was,” he said casually. “But my meeting just got canceled.”
“They’re working you hard over there. I hope you’re taking care of yourself.”
Wei shrugged. “Once in a while, you know, I don’t mind going in on a weekend. Except it looks like I woke up early for nothing.”
“The fact that you can usually sleep in is a good thing. None of the rest of us can wake up past seven anymore.” David nodded toward the dining area, where Nicholas Pan and Steve Yao, fellow Chinese-American expats and corporate executives, were already seated with their food. “Anyway, I’ll see you over there.” He headed for the griddle station.
Wei removed his tie, folded it, and zipped it into the front flap of his briefcase. Saturday—how could it be Saturday? The alarm had gone off. No, it hadn’t. He’d woken to the sound of Qiang’s voice.
At the coffee bar, he asked for two espresso shots and drank them standing up. Then he ordered his omelet, loaded bread into the toaster, and filled a plate with fruit.
“Get out of here with that healthy stuff,” Nicholas said as Wei approached the table. “Our wives are going to come downstairs in a minute and you’re about to make us look bad. You know how long it took David to get Peng to let him have pancakes?”
“I only get to eat them once a week,” David said with his mouth full. “And you’re ruining the experience.”
As Wei sat down, the espresso hit him so suddenly that his body felt like a gong. He felt rung.
“Peng told me your brother’s coming next week,” David said. “You have Expo tickets yet? I can get you fast passes if you need them.”
“I’m set, thanks. Actually, a vendor sent a couple more over yesterday. If any of you are interested, I have extras.”
“The World Expo is the last place on earth I want to be,” Nicholas said. “Crammed into those exhibits with a million other people? No, thank you.”
“I was going to have Lina take my brother and Karen during the week, when it’s less crowded.”
“But it’s China’s year!” said David. “You don’t want to see us outdo every other country there? I heard the U.S. is so in debt at this point that they’re funding the American pavilion entirely from corporate donations. That’s us.” He jabbed his thumb into his chest. “We’re paying for the Expo.”
“I don’t know how it is over at Ford, but we’re not being philanthropic about it by any means,” Nicholas said.
“Oh, come on. Your company has its logo all over the website! It’s one of the biggest sponsors.”
“That’s not charity, that’s advertising. Millions of Chinese are going to see that pavilion. Ask the industry expert. What do you think, Wei? Is the ad space in the pavilion worth it?”
Wei’s job at Medora had grown so vague that even his closest friends had trouble understanding it. It was easier for them to remember him by industry rather than by title and for him to pretend to know more about sponsorship price points and outdoor advertising than he really did.
“It depends on the layout and what they end up putting in the space,” Wei said. “Could probably make the same amount of money work harder digitally, though.”
The men nodded, already losing interest. Nick drew his phone out of his pocket. “My wife is picking me up a watch while she’s in Hong Kong. Which of these do you think I should get?”
David leaned over to look at the screen. “Hey, the Batman watch! Limited stock, right?”
“GMT Master Two,” Nick said. “I don’t know if I like that one. But the one with the blue face is nice.” He flipped to a different image and presented it to the group. “I can tell her to pick up extras.”
“Yeah? I’l
l take one.”
“Let me see that,” Wei said, reaching for the phone.
“Are they all Rolex?” Steve asked. He was the resident watch connoisseur and the only one at the table who had a real collection. Wei had heard from Lina, who had heard from Steve’s wife, that Steve had a motorized arm in his bedroom that kept all his watches moving when they were not being worn.
“Oh, don’t be a snob,” said Nick. “If they’re too tacky for you, just say it.”
“They’re nice. Understated. Go back to the left. That one.”
“So two Batmans, one blue. I’m going with blue too. Wei?”
“Blue,” Wei said. “And one more for my brother.”
He decided, for once, to treat his wallet the way these men treated theirs—like conduits for their imaginations. The thought of Qiang wearing a watch that matched his own made it easier for Wei to picture them starting their relationship over—not as rivals, but as equals. Despite the fact that he was sleep-deprived and didn’t know what day it was, despite the fact that he had become middle-aged in the blink of an eye, Wei felt his life was suddenly full of possibility. After all, what he had thought impossible had happened: his brother had decided to come home.
The clubhouse restaurant had begun to fill up with ayis and young children. Five years ago, Wei would never have imagined they’d be hiring their own ayi. Lina used to be the kind of woman who rejected the idea of hired help. She used to have so much energy. She would have taken the task of cooking for four as a challenge. Back in Collegeville, when Wei picked Lina up from the elementary school where she worked, he would see her standing there behind the big metal doors, her eyes fixed on the approaching car. Before it came to a full stop, she would pull the passenger-side door open and toss in her bag. Then she would throw herself into the backseat with Karen, whom she nearly dragged into her lap with excitement. Wei had watched them in the rearview mirror, fascinated by his wife’s energy as she chattered the whole way home. How could a person have so much to say to a five-year-old? How could you work with children all day and have enough of that energy left over for your own child? Wei’s energy was all drawn from the same inner reserve. After work, he was so tired that he could barely take Karen into his arms. The love was there, of course, but by the end of the day it was dulled.
Lina, however, had an unexpected resilience, an ability to compartmentalize. She could work a ten-hour day in which nothing went right—one kid threw up, another punched her in the gut and called her a Chink—and still, she would spend the evening mastering Western recipes she’d copied from library books. It was like Newton’s third law of motion: every action has an equal and opposite reaction. She could take the tiredness and the hate and turn them into acts of love and creation for her family. Here, taste. She would hold the spoon out to Wei. It’s sour, he said, making a face. Xiang xia ren, ba? She liked to tease him about his unworldliness. This is how the Italians eat noodles. I’m trying to teach you some culture. But when she thought he wasn’t looking, she added a spoonful of sugar to the sauce. They ate with chopsticks, the tomato base staining the bamboo a shy red. Say “linguine,” Lina told Karen. “Linguine,” Karen said, and the word slipped out as easily as the noodles did from the chopsticks held in her stubby fingers. By the time she was six, she could recite the Pledge of Allegiance in under seven seconds. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic of witches’ hands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all.
When they first arrived in America, it was Lina who had single-handedly taken on the task of learning the country. On weekends, she turned on the TV and watched shows where white people screamed at one another onstage and chased one another backstage. Then commercials came on. Then black people screamed at one another onstage and chased one another backstage. He had watched Lina squint at the TV, trying to pick up on the essential American thing she wasn’t getting. During their earliest years in America, when Wei was still a grad student in Penn’s engineering program, Wei and Lina were too poor to afford real entertainment. After dinner, they would pass the time by walking into drugstores to look at all the strange American sundries on display. Lina lingered in the holiday aisles, fingering tinsel or heart-shaped chocolate boxes, choosing just one thing at a time to bring home. It wasn’t until later that they realized they had been buying Easter chicks on Valentine’s Day and discount Halloween candy on Thanksgiving.
How quickly their understanding of American life had increased after they’d had Karen! Kiddie parties and playdates meant forays into the homes of others, which allowed them to observe up close how they lived. Not the staged moments—holidays over at colleagues’ homes, with their perfect gold-rimmed dinnerware and cloth napkins. They saw real behind-the-scenes stuff: knives magnetized above the sink, boxed meals in the fridge, and kids who sometimes climbed into bed with their shoes still on.
Now, in the clubhouse restaurant, Wei sensed his wife coming toward them before he saw her. Lina’s carriage was erect, mastlike. She walked in a way that made her seem taller than she was. After saying hello to the other men, she eyed Wei in his suit. “You have a meeting this early?”
“It was canceled.” The corner of her left eyebrow tensed—she knew he wasn’t telling the truth. But instead of pulling him away from the others to find out what was going on, as she would have done years ago, she simply nodded and opened her handbag.
“Here,” she said. “The girl at the takeaway counter said you ordered this.” She took a white paper sack out of her bag—his forgotten breakfast—and placed it on the floor next to him.
Things felt off between them these days, but what the problem was he couldn’t quite figure out. And so he labeled it a second-tier emergency, pushed it out of his thoughts for now. Lina was making small talk with the rest of the men, nodding in her distant, perfunctory way.
“Sit down,” Wei told her, pulling a chair out next to him.
She hesitated, sending a glance toward the booth near the windows where her friends were sitting. The decision to eat with the men caused a minute and fleeting strain on her expression, which only Wei could detect. Then she sank into the seat and picked up where she’d left off in conversation.
7
On Saturdays, most of Sunny’s housemates either went in late to work or had the day off. In the early morning, the house was quiet, which meant Sunny could take her time getting ready. She could lie in bed and fool around on her phone while the water was boiling for her breakfast. There was just enough time to eat and drink a cup of tea while playing Happy Farm and responding to the WeChat group that included her mother and sister.
Sunny: How are you feeling, Yanzi?
Yanzi QQ: I’m permanently attached to the couch. I can’t move. It makes me nauseous.
Tong Mama: She’s fine. Just using the baby as an excuse to be lazy.
Yanzi QQ: How many years has it been since you’ve been pregnant, Ma???
Tong Mama: I was still harvesting the fields in my eighth month when I was pregnant with you. You’re lucky you didn’t drop out between my legs.
As much as her mother teased Yanzi about being lazy, Sunny knew that she couldn’t be happier that Yanzi was pregnant. In fact, she was willing to bet that her mother had been the one to tell Yanzi to start relaxing, for the good of the baby.
Yanzi QQ: Jie, you need to catch up! You’re still only on level sixteen on Happy Farm. Are you even playing anymore?
Sunny: I’m behind! Help your sister out and donate some resources!
Tong Mama: Your sister is a working woman…she doesn’t have so much time like you.
Sunny knew her mother too well not to understand that this was yet another way of shaming her. In Mama’s mind, the real, important work was to continue the family line by carrying a child. This was what made a woman a woman; it was work that men could not do. But what would she say if she knew that soon Sunny could be sending home almost twice her usual amount? That was more than what
any of her uncles or brothers were making.
Yanzi QQ: Jie, you should get pregnant like me and farm all day! From the couch!
Sunny: How’s the real farm doing? Are you leaving all that work up to the boys?
Yanzi QQ: Bunny’s boyfriend comes around to help a lot now. I think he’s on his best behavior because he’s getting ready to propose.
Tong Mama: Soon it will be her turn to farm from the couch.
She should just accept it; there would be no end to the proposals, the marriages, the children. Last night, Sunny had been thinking so much about Rose’s situation that she hadn’t given much thought to her own. Being accused meant her job was at risk too. The Zhens might not think she took the bracelet, but management could have its own ideas. Why shouldn’t she take the job? Doing so would prove her innocence. She couldn’t afford to risk losing income, especially now, with Yanzi’s baby on the way.
“What are you still doing here?”
Sunny looked up and was surprised to see Yang Zifei standing before her in a bootleg Bathing Ape T-shirt, the corners of his eyes still crusted over. He plunked his mug of tea down on the table and sat across from Sunny. “Aren’t you usually gone by now?” he asked.
“It’s Saturday, so the traffic isn’t so bad. I can leave a little later. Why are you up so early?”
Yang Zifei was in his midtwenties. He worked during the day as a tree surgeon on the street crew of the Xuhui Landscape Development Company and at night as a server at a club in Hongqiao. Sunny sometimes ran into him when she was leaving the house in the morning and he was just coming home. He shook his head, sending his bright copper hair flopping across his face.
“I couldn’t sleep right last night. Rice wine sometimes does that to me. I don’t know why. It washes away my worries like a scented bath and I sleep like a baby, but then, bah! Slaps me awake three hours later. Nothing is going right for me this week. Did you know someone stole the incense burner I bought for the bathroom?”